Tag: Peterborough United

A recent tweet by the BBC’s Ian Dennis brought some memories flooding back. Not of Dennis’s angry reaction to my criticism of a Radio 5 Live show he hosted about UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative (although I thought Dennis was the programme’s only decent contributor). But memories of a curious FA Cup first-round tie from 1992. Dennis’s tweet concerned Oldham Athletic caretaker-supremo Tony Philliskirk. On February 16th, before the 2-2 draw with Everton at Boundary Park which set up tonight’s FA Cup fifth-round replay at Goodison Park, Dennis tweeted “Until today highlight of Tony Philliskirk career in FA Cup was scoring five goals for Peterborough only to have them expunged.“ Indeed, Philliskirk scored six times in the tie – a remarkable effort considering his Peterborough United side progressed 1-0 in a replay at their London Road ground, after a 1-1 draw in the first match. So, how so? More people will almost certainly be aware that Dennis Law is the answer the pub quiz-style question “Who scored seven goals in an FA Cup tie but ended up on the losing side?” In 1961, Law scored all six Manchester City goals as they led 6-2 in a fourth-round tie at Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road. The match was abandoned after 69 minutes due to a waterlogged pitch. And when they started again, Law scored again, only for City to lose 3-1....

We continue our series of archive matches of the clubs of the Football League Championship this morning with Peterborough United. Peterborough were formed in 1934 and were elected into the Football League in 1960 in place of Gateshead. They won the Fourth Division championship at the first attempt, but were relegated back to the Fourth Division in the summer of 1968 after serious financial irregularities were found in the clubs accounts. Our six matches are from the years between 1963 and 2011, kicking off with an FA Cup match against Watford from November 1963, introduced by Kenneth Wolstenholme, whilst our second match sees them at home againsst Middlesbrough in a Division Two match from 1975. Our third match sees Peterborough United at home against Manchester City in an FA Cup Fifth Round match from February 1981, and we then skip forward to the 1989/90 season for two matches from the First Round of the FA Cup against non-league Hayes. Our fifth match sees Peterborough at home against Cardiff City from the 1990/91 season, whilst the final match in this post is a match that will still likely be fresh in the memory of most of the clubs supporters, the home derby match against Ipswich Town from the start of the 2011/12 season. You can follow Twohundredpercent on Twitter by clicking...

The extent to which the history of a football club can be woven into its modern day persona. It’s obvious that there is nothing genetic in passing down a legacy of greatness at a club. The enduring power of those that stay at the top is nothing to do with inherent superiority, but is usually a more prosaic matter of financial clout and strong organisation at every level of the club concerned. It is possible to argue that short, protracted periods of success can be the legacy of one individual. Herbert Chapman was the manager of Huddersfield Town for just four years, but the imprint that he left upon the club has proved to be indelible. Huddersfield won three championships and an FA Cup during the 1920s. Chapman departed for Arsenal in 1925, but the club remained a regular fixture in the First Division until the mid-1950s. Apart from a couple of seasons back there in the early 1970s, however, they haven’t been back there since. How much does the weight of his history hang over the club in the twenty-first century? Compared to Huddersfield Town’s rich heritage, Peterborough United could be described as nouveau riche, but it is now more than half a century since they replaced Gateshead in the Football League after having won the Midland League for five consecutive seasons. Like Huddersfield, though, they are now...

If you wanted to see a hint of the essence of the unconfined joy of football coupled with a hint at the traditions of the game in England, it was on display behind the goal at Peterborough United’s London Road this evening. When, at the third attempt, Craig Mackail-Smith bundled the ball over the goal-line to complete the home side’s over-turning of what had been, at one point during the first leg, a 3-1 deficit, the terrace behind the goal exploded under lights turned amber by decades of tobacco smoke, a joyous explosion of care-free abandon. London Road has two such terraces, one at each end of the ground. The Moyes End, which sits opposite it, has its final hurrah this evening before being demolished and replaced by something thoroughly modern. Fifty-odd miles down the M1, there is already something thoroughly modern. Peterborough United travelled to Buckinghamshire at the weekend and, after a good start, almost saw their world cave in. With a man sent off and having fallen two goals behind, it was starting to look as if they might have missed their window of opportunity of making the Old Trafford final. This, though, was only part of the story of the first leg. Peterborough United took almost 4,400 supporters to the first leg, and this was a match played out in front of banks and banks of...

Last night’s matches in the Football League were a carnival of goals, drama and excitement but (with the possible exception of Leeds United’s extraordinary implosion against Preston North End) the majority of us real event of the evening came at London Road, where the end of the match between Peterborough United and Notts County was “marred” by a massive fight between the players and staff of the two teams. The BBC took the time to edit down the events at the end of the match and even took the time to synchronise the commentary from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire for the occasion (the video is, for UK viewers, is available here, whilst those of you stopping by from elsewhere in the world can see some shaky cameraphone footage of it here). There are few other events that can occur during a football match that bring about more clichés in the media than a fight on the pitch. The brawls are always “mass” (which, considering that a brawl is dictionary defined as “a noisy quarrel or fight”, is hardly surprising, and they always “mar” the proceedings. Sometimes it will be described (usually as part of the post-match analysis by a former player) as “handbags (at dawn)”. No phrase that hasn’t been turned over a million times before will be deemed too lazy to file to demonstrate the disapproval of the writer...